2014 Fall Newsletter

Fall 2014 Newsletter

The Bend Endurance Academy promotes healthy living through active, outdoor experiences. We emphasize teamwork, personal growth and community responsibility.

Director’s Note

We have grown so much in the past year! The hard work of expanding programs, connecting with students, teachers and families has certainly kept us on our toes, but the reward is that we have helped many more children get outside.

Fall is a great time for BEA. With the bus, vans and trailers shuttling kids from REALMS, The Montessori Center and many Bend La Pine schools out to play in the
woods, almost every after school program is full.

The cyclocross team has already made several trips over the mountains for the Junior Series Races; our climbing team is traveling around the Northwest pulling down hard for slots to regional and national competitions; and the ski season gets underway in two weeks as Bend Endurance Elite Team members Dakota Blackhorse and Elena Breed head north to Canmore, Alberta to ski
(on snow that has been buried all summer under sawdust) against North America’s best skiers.

While growth is good, our main goal is to operate a healthy organization. Our program directors have been hiring excellent new staff members, our board of directors is engaged in various projects, and everyone is working together to support you and your children’s active pursuits with the Bend Endurance Academy.

Join us in the Old Mill on November 1-2 to support the Cyclocross Team at Deschutes Brewery Halloween Cross Crusade. Also on that
Saturday, the Climbing Team will be hosting the Reel Rock Film Festival at Summit High School starting at 7pm. Have a great fall and keep finding us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
for daily updates!

– Ben Husaby, Executive Director

Cycling: Youth for the Future

People often see our older riders in full team uniforms, whizzing down the trails and assume that we must only have a competitive team. Actually, we are mostly a youth development team. We had over 220 young mountain bikers ride with us this season! Although we have nearly 30 riders on the Cyclocross Team, the non-competitive youth far outnumber our older racers.

“The main
goal of every ride is to go have fun,” says Cycling Director Bill Warburton. “Through fun shuttles, riding in groups, learning from great instructors and looking up to their older peers, I’m most proud of the feeling that we have every day that the kids are all riding as a team.”

Competition Coach Chad Cheeney
adds, “My goal with my coaching this session, is to get them learning their own way to get fast, through trial and error, mirroring coaches and peers, and basically team building.”

Each of our 15 cycling coaches brings a different outlook to practice and that allows us to create groups for almost any age or ability. We also do as much as we can to integrate our team into the greater cycling community by attending events, volunteering at trail work parties and inviting special guests to practice.

These are the key elements to
creating a sustainable junior development program for Bend. Thank you for your support this season! See you in the spring.

– Bill Warburton, Cycling Director

Calendar

October 22:Nordic Parent Info Meeting 6PM at our Office

October 25:Bouldering Competition, Bend Rock Gym

November 1:Reel Rock Film Festival doors 6:30, show at 7PM

November 1 – 2: Halloween Cyclocross Crusadein the Old Mill

December 6: USA Climbing Regional Championships, Boise, ID

A Poem: Mountain Biking

by Peter Heisler

Looking down from the top I was scared out of my wits, like a duck when a gun goes off. Waiting… waiting… Then Go! I was off like a police car on a high speed chase.

Suddenly I was playing a game with death as I
flew into the air at least 20 feet. But just as fast as I flew up, I am back on the ground. I was an airplane touching back down after a long flight.

Now picking up speed, I look to my side, I see trees running with me. Soon I am a bird again, flying in the air. But then I am back to being the same old person, but that all changes as I ride through the corner, almost touching the ground.

Soon I am dodging and weaving through the trees like a snake weaving in and out of the grass. Suddenly I am in a meadow. I look up and see the smiling sun
shining down on me. I continue on my way but slowly head back to the car.

By the time I got to the car the sun had painted beautiful colors all over the sky, from blood red all the way to the darkest purples. I didn’t want to leave this magical place.

But I had to go back to the boring and dull world of humans and all of their problems. With that I promised that I would go back to this wonderful area call the biking trails.

Cyclocross Team 2014

All thirty of us are having a blast at the local races, traveling in the van across Oregon and getting ready for Nationals in Texas. Thank you Crow’s Feet Commons
and FOCUS Bikes for getting our riders onto team bikes and for helping build our loaner fleet — we have gained several riders this year because they borrow bikes to get started or for the entire season, and having extras in the pit has saved a few from “DNF’s” already this year.

Meet Steve

Steve Delery
is our driver for the Adventure Bus.

Transporting children around town takes up a large percentage of a parent’s day so we’re always working to consolidate trips and optimizing program schedules.

When we brought the Bus into service in June we were able to eliminate thousands of miles of parents driving across town.

Steve drove bus routes for the Bend LaPine
district for twenty years after moving to Bend from Hawaii where he taught elementary and junior high.

Looking around Bend in the 1980’s, Steve didn’t see anyone making fresh salsa to his satisfaction so he began experimenting with his own recipes until he successfully formulated his “O-Hana salsa” and as soon as people tried it the demand skyrocketed. His family spent months trying to keep up with demand and eventually he founded the very successful O-Hana Salsa Company. He has since sold the company, is semi-retired and spends much of his time hunting and fishing.

Steve was most impressed this summer by how young the mountain bikers are. “They’re all so young and only this big, but then I see them get on their bikes and the things they can do – it’s just amazing.”

We look forward to using the Bus this winter for the Nordic Youth Programs. Steve assures us he’s ready to safely transport our team. “I used to drive the Bachelor Buses for many years, too, so I have lots of experience on that road in the winter.”

New Nordic Youth Head Coach

Meet our New Youth Club Head Coach, Hilary Rich!

This will be Hilary’s second year coaching for BEA. A relatively recent graduate from Middlebury College, she was a captain of their Nordic Ski Team. From Andover, MA, Hilary represented USA as a member of the U18 team racing in Norway in 2009.

Hilary moved to Bend last year and has quickly established herself in Bend. She acts as an Ambassador for the Bend Chamber of Commerce, is a member of the Young Professionals Committee and is on the Social Events Committee through the Central Oregon Association of Realtors.

Hilary loves skiing, hiking, mountain biking and is excited to share her passion for the outdoors with the Youth Club this winter!

Climbing Update

After a great summer of outdoor climbing Camps at Smith Rock and training with the Competition Team, we have turned our focus to the Fall Climbing Programs.

Our Wednesday After School Outdoor climbers have been enjoying their time outdoors at Smith Rock and the Youth Development Team is back in the climbing gym with Coaches Kelly & Brady for drills, games and movement exercises.

Youth practice has been especially fun lately. A few days ago, I was filling in for Coach Brady while he was on a climbing trip to China, and Coach Kelly and I noticed the young teammates encouraging each other, spotting each other as they pushed themselves on hard boulder problems, all the while they shared beta, or information about how to solve the problem. Kelly and I had prepared a well-scripted plan on how the practice would flow, but as we watched the athletes excel through a completely organic experience– what we were seeing was so positive– that we decided to just sit back and roll with it.

The end result of this atmosphere was that every single person on the team had their
best day yet of the 2014 season!

The Competition Team hit the ground running this fall in preparation for the bouldering competition season. October is full of competitions throughout Oregon leading up to Regional Championships in Boise, ID. We see the hard work that the athletes have put in over the summer starting to pay off and this is helping motivate everyone during practices.

Coming up next week, for middle schoolers, we have a two-day day “ROCKTOBER Camp” on October 16th and 17th during the days off from
school. This Camp will provide the opportunity for anyone — beginners welcome — to get outside and climb at Smith Rock.

Climbing goes through the entire fall, winter and spring so check out the program info online and look for updates on Facebook and Instagram!

New Nordic Devo Head Coach

Meet our new Nordic Head Development Coach,Jordan Buetow.

ver the years skiing has taken me all over the country and I couldn’t be more excited for my next destination; to be in Bend coaching for the Bend Endurance Academy. Growing up in Fairbanks, AK I got more than my fair share of cold, dark winters. After five great years in New England – one at Burke Mountain Academy and the rest at Bates College where I recently graduated with a degree in Environmental Studies – I am looking forward to settling in the high desert of Central
Oregon.

I spent last summer training with Bend Endurance Academy so I know full well what I’m getting myself into. It turned out to be one of my most memorable summers to date and I got fitter and learned more about myself as an athlete than ever. Never have I trained so hard, and had so much fun doing it. BEA has an infectious atmosphere that had me looking forward to every day of practice. This is so important because that is why we all started skiing in the first place – because it’s fun!

Now that I have moved on from racing I am
very excited to be joining the coaching staff at BEA; helping to make skiing for these kids the same incredible experience that it was for me. It’s great to see all the energy in the program, from the youngest Youth Club members all the way up through the Comp Team. I look forward to providing a motivating atmosphere where our skiers can reach their potential as both athletes and as people.

Adult Nordic Skiing

We offer Nordic Fall Ladies and Winter Masters Skate Classes. Improving your technique is a lifelong pursuit. Sign up for our classes to learn modern progressions that will improve your ability to ski longer with more ease.

Donate

We strive to keep our program fees reasonable. In turn, our families and friends have shown their gratitude by turning out for the myriad volunteer opportunities that we have fostered with other local events and organizations.